I so love this very important day of the year where 50% (approx before any pedant gets on my back) of the world’s population gets to jump up and down, wear purple and make asinine tweets or Facebook comments for A. Whole. Day.

Equally encouraging, are the saccharine news articles telling us how much women’s lot has improved.

This year’s theme, “Empowering Women – Empowering Humanity: Picture It!” envisions a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as participating in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.

and

“To be truly transformative, the post-2015 development agenda must prioritize gender equality and women’s empowerment. The world will never realize 100 per cent of its goals if 50 per cent of its people cannot realize their full potential. ”

The new millennium has witnessed a significant change … The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women’s education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

Very good. At least we are getting to something meaningful now. But …

However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.

… let’s not dwell on the down side? However:

It’s more than 50 years since Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the first woman prime minister, quickly followed by Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir. That’s hardly recent progress.

Girls have been going to university since the 1870s.

Many women have to work while having a family to fund that family. And still come home and ‘housekeep’. Is that a real choice?

How about looking at whether women have real choices in fundamentalist religious communities? How about looking at whether women’s right to choose an abortion is continually under attack?

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.

Fashion parades? Really?

Many global corporations have also started to more actively support IWD by running their own internal events and through supporting external ones. For example, on 8 March search engine and media giant Google some years even changes its logo on its global search pages. Year on year IWD is certainly increasing in status. The United States even designates the whole month of March as ‘Women’s History Month’.

And just how is this ending discrimination and improving women’s health care and education in developing countries and poor communities in the western world?

The theme on this website is ‘Make It Happen’ and the UN was also using ‘Step It Up’, both are aiming at achieving gender equality sooner rather than later.

Well, I can’t personally make better health care happen in Uganda (Guardian) or stop girls being pulled out of school to fetch water (UN).

What I can do is highlight sexist derogatory comments. Because, while everyone signs up to the laudable principles of better health care and education for women and girls, what everyone does not sign up to is accepting, admitting, and ending discrimination. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, or rather in the eye of the offendee.

So, day after day, I read news items, speeches, blog posts about people who proclaim they are not sexist and then open their mouth and shoot themselves in the foot.

A couple of examples.

Here, because he is just amazing in his sheer lunacy, is the religious blogger I recently quoted:

Our society is really screwed up today! A lot of the problems are the result of the Evils of Feminism!!! The goals of feminism have been to destroy society by destroying the Christian Family- Husband, Wife, & Children. With the Husband going to work, the Wife staying at home being a full time homemaker! Then feminism came along, with it’s lies & telling the women to ditch the home & family for that “Career” The lie of a career being more satisfying for women than the true purpose of women- to raise the Future! The ability to create another life is a PRECIOUS GIFT that God gave to Women! That is far more noble & fulfilling than ANY job can be! And the Husband should be the one to support the whole family, as God intended it to be! Then,along with the feminist goal of wrecking the time tested & traditional family, along comes “The Pill” and casual sex, teaching women to be more promiscuous, and be less inhibited about having casual sex.
and let the men welsh on their responsibility for the kids that were produced in all the fornication that resulted from the pill. Along came Abortion! No problem, you don’t want your baby, then just kill it! And let’s lie to the woman, and tell her “it is not a baby, just a clump of cells, or a fetus, or any other name to de-humanise the baby, so he or she will be easier for you to kill!!! And then homosexuality- Lie to people some more, tell them they were “born gay” and they should be proud of being a perverted sicko- Go marry another perverted sicko!

Women Can’t have it both ways- a career is NOT compatible with Motherhood, and feminism knew that all along, that’s exactly what they wanted!!! To destroy the Christian Family! Oh, yes- we must also remove God from the equation- hence evolution, or just saying “there is no proof that God exists” (which is a LIE) There is plenty of factual evidence to prove beyond any doubt that God is Real!

– Sailordale

Amazing. I have no response to that, except, feminism has no interest in destroying the christian family. Feminism wants equality for women. If christianity doesn’t accept that, well, that’s up to christians to cope with it however they choose. But, and a big BUT, their god-derived view of the world should not impact on women who don’t share those views.

Now, that’s a fairly easy one to criticise. Let’s look at something more subtle and insidious.

I recently read a blog post about Butterface. Like the blogger, I’d never heard the term before. It’s a really witty (?) word usage to refer to a woman with a good body and an ugly face. ‘She’s got a great body but her face …’

And no, I didn’t comment for obvious reasons. Others did. Far more nicely than I would have done.

Now, note, the blogger later added this:

I knew, when I posted this, that some might consider it sexist. ….

It was not my intention to be sexist. …

I hope no one takes offense at this post, but if anyone does, well, all I can say in my defense is that it was a female who used the term. I’m just, in an attempt to be witty, relating the story.

And seriously, if you are truly offended by this post, grow up. When did you lose your sense of humor?

– Doobster

I know 99% of readers do not grasp what feminism is about but I’ll attempt the impossible and try to explain why this is a problem. Because until sexism and discrimination stop being the norm, gender equality won’t become the norm either. Which will suit the 50% in power.

So, what’s the problem with this oh so funny comment?

A woman is being judged on her face and her body. It’s called objectification. We, both men and women, look at women and rate them on how sexually attractive they are. Because that is how women are primarily judged.

I knew some people might think of it like that, but it wasn’t my intention, so therefore it’s ok, EVEN though I knew I might be causing offence. Stop. Seriously. Give me back that shovel you are digging your own grave with. You knew it might be considered sexist, yet it wasn’t your intention to be sexist by repeating it? Um.

Going on the defensive because, yes, it was sexist. However, it wasn’t his fault because another woman made the statement. This is always the number one classic defence. Well that’s all right then isn’t it? Sadly no, it’s not. Because women are imbued with the same societal values and culture as men. Women making sexist comments about each other does not make it better or mean it isn’t sexist.

And the second classic defence is: no sense of humour. ‘It’s funny, don’t you get that?’ It’s really funny insulting women because their physical appearance doesn’t come up to scratch. It’s just a joke. Lighten up.

Why is this wrong? Because it is not taking women seriously when they complain about sexist, offensive, derogatory comments. And it doesn’t just happen in blogland and on facebook and Twitter (qv the man with his rapetruck), it happens in real life when politicians put women down by laughing at them and taking serious points and turning them into jokes, and then accusing people of no sense of humour.

It is not funny. Just as rape jokes are not funny.

With which:

A United Nations statistical report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries. In some jurisdictions, male-female rape is the only form of rape counted in the statistics. The attitude of the police in many countries often discourages victims from reporting rape: one study in Turkey found that 33% of police officers agreed with the assertion that “some women deserve rape” and 66% agreed that “the physical appearance and behaviors of women tempt men to rape.”

In many parts of the world, rape is very rarely reported, due to the extreme social stigma cast on women who have been raped, or the fear of being disowned by their families, or subjected to violence, including honor killings. Furthermore, in countries where adultery and/or premarital sex are illegal, victims of rape can face prosecution under these laws, if there is not sufficient evidence to prove a rape in the court. Even if they can prove their rape case, evidence during investigation may surface showing that they were not virgins at the time of the rape, which, if they are unmarried, opens the door for prosecution.

Countries may or may not criminalize marital rape, and, in many countries which do criminalize it, prosecutions for it are exceptionally rare. Sexual activity in marriage is, in many parts of the world, considered an absolute right of the husband that can be taken with or without the consent of his wife; the very act of a woman refusing to have sex with her husband may be considered unthinkable: in one survey, 74% of women in Mali said that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him. Though de jure, a rape law may be applicable to any victim; de facto the enforcement of the law often excludes certain victims, such as prostitutes, women who were not virgins at the time of the rape, or other women with a ‘bad reputation’.

Sure it’s from wiki but it’s good enough to make my point about sexual objectification being inherent in all our societies, in both men and women.

When a majority of women find it acceptable for men to beat their wives for refusing sex, we have some seriously screwed-up values.

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About roughseasinthemed

I write about my life as an English person living in Spain and Gibraltar, on Roughseas, subjects range from politics and current developments in Gib to book reviews, cooking and getting on with life.
My views and thoughts on a variety of topics - depending on my mood of the day - can be found over on Clouds. A few pix are over on Everypic - although it is not a photoblog.
And of course my dog had his own blog, but most of you knew that anyway. Pippadogblog etc

77 Responses to We’re all (nearly) equal now …

This! This! This! All the this!
On the one hand, having a day, our own little niche, is progress. But we will recognize true equality when we find that there is no need for a niche, no feelings of seperation. Ahhh! Thank you.

This one little day has been around for more than a hundred years, when it was originally linked to socialism/labour movement not fashion parades and meaningless tweets. Where have we got to in a hundred years? And the UN is pushing for parity in 15 years time? Just. No. Way.

I nearly wrote about IMD and how it was ridiculous to have a men’s day for the superior half, but I’ll leave that one for November. If I remember.

I’m all for good PR, but in this case I think celebrating ‘progress’ minimises how far we have to go. And regardless of what anyone says, there is one hell of a long way to go.

You were much nicer than I would have been on the Butterface post. Because, you know, women aren’t really allowed to call someone out. So, not, the, done, thing. IWD always gets up my nose 😀

I went back and forth on how I wanted to comment on the Butterface post. It’s just…ergh! As you said, you can’t be offended or point out the sexism because ‘GAWD it’s just a joke!’ And you get dismissed right away. Honestly, I am past being offended by the term. But that’s just it. We can’t point out the small stuff. The big stuff is hardly discussed and seen as ‘minority’ issues. The line between the big and small is blurred by the ground we have gained. Urgh.

I left it because I knew the response I would get. He said it all in the edited note. Maybe I should go back. I feel guilty when I don’t say something. Hey, they came for the Jews and all that. Someone needs to speak out. So if it’s me with no sense of humour, what does it cost me? But, how does it portray feminism? Oh, sulky women who have no sense of humour etc.

What I don’t understand is why he’s so prickly about it all. Very few people called him out on it, most people were sympathetic, agreed that it was humorous, and he’s made a big drama out of it. Until he mentioned it, I didn’t realise he’d written a guest post about it elsewhere (saying that he’d got grief). Instead of listening to what I’m saying I just get a defensive reaction each time. I could have scripted it.

Which is why I liked your post. Pussy-footing around and shrieking in horror at feminists isn’t doing anyone any favours. Nor are platitudes and noble aspirations. Gender equality by 2030 or 2050. Having. A. Laugh. All you have to do is read the blog extracts on mine. That attitude is going to change overnight? Sure.

Yup. Women a hundred years ago were stronger and (in the UK) did a hell of a lot more just to achieve the vote. And it wasn’t dressing up in purple, going on fashion parades, or baking cakes to sell at craft stalls.

(Our fannies are different to yours of course)

The so-called drive for equality won’t happen in my lifetime. It needs one hell of a kick up the arse. Or possibly your fanny. Or ass.

The part you quoted from Sailordade is just the mentality I see all throughout the Bible Belt. It never ceases to amaze me how these guys think they know exactly what a woman wants or needs. Not only that, they don’t even realize that they are actually saying they can’t be good fathers because they have a career. Oops.

Where were these “sanctified, redeemed by the blood” narcissists when I had to raise my daughter on my own after they played a major role in the death of my partner. Had I not had the skill sets and career, I would not have been able to sufficiently take care of my daughter.

Thanks Victoria. It’s a where to start, and there’s no end, sort of post, so I just stuck right in and wanted to use a number of different examples of why it isn’t working. There is no equality between the sexes. Simple as that.

Good fathers? Come now, Ms NN, surely you know parenting is a woman’s role and responsibility? Indeed SD sums it up so well, misogynist git that he is. And, to be fair, Ark did tell him that too. Although I think he said arse not git. Or something.

Twenty years back in the UK, men were looking after children when their wife had a better career. Takes two to procreate, either can nurture. No? Yes. Why shouldn’t a man be capable of bringing up children? I can cite examples of men who have done an excellent job. Gender assumption is really annoying.

You had a hellish job on your own. I honestly can’t imagine it. There is some crap on the IWD sites about inspiring women. Maybe you’d qualify. Point is though, suffering through adversity shouldn’t be a cause for triumph. Adversity and discrimination shouldn’t be there in the first place. But, they are. Time to acknowledge it and get rid of it not say, gee we’ve got a female astronaut.

Your fault for giving him my credentials 😀
I think he writes some good comments on other blogs, but I’m bemused by his own posts.
I did think his buttery post was crass, but I wasn’t going to pour oil on the fire.
I couldn’t make head nor tail of then/than!

Kate, you will allow me to make a light note of this very serious post.
I saw a joke that today is the only IWD, the remaining 364/5 days are international men’s days. In a sense, there is still a long way to go

Top tips.
1) Try not to use men/man as a default. Instead choose people, humans (depending on context).
2) Similarly guys. Yes, I know it’s an American catchall and oh so hip. But really, what’s wrong with people, everyone, you (without guys), even the ghastly American folk/s. None of those are gender specific.
That’s all I can think of for now.

Another great read, but I am unable to make a comment of real sense, I am amazed at these people that you have found actually believe the stuff they write and some using a third person as such to justify their owns words.. I am probably guilty somewhere along my daily or monthly or even yearly life of being sexist but purely unintentional or ignorance would be my excuse. However i do write so much drivel and believe it as some do. Thank you for enlightening me a little more than I was a couple of minutes ago…

There is a big difference between someone saying I may make sexist comments, and someone saying well I think it might be, but I’ll make it anyway, and so what it’s funny and a woman said it first anyway.

Great post Kate and thanks for setting the record straight. Then folks wonder why I love animals so much. They have no religion, they don’t judge and thank mother nature, they don’t think like sailorputz and other fools out there like him!

The thing is there’s what I call blatant sexism, which is what happened with sailordale. Then there is subtle sexism which is what I thought happened with Doobster. Sailordale’s is “in your face” and extreme sounding so it shocks and everyone else except those who hold that position can see that it’s sexism. Having read Doobster for a while that post seemed kind of out of character, really. I was a little shocked by it. When I posted my original comment over there I thought I might get him to see that the woman his nieces were talking about and the woman in the meme were real people. How would he feel if that were his daughter? Would he view it as sexist, then?

You see you get it straight away. Great and accurate description of the sailordale garbage.

I was surprised by the Doob one too. He’s seemed perfectly ok when I’ve read his comments elsewhere so I decided to follow his blog. And got confronted with butterface! So not what I expected.

I think most people who disagreed tried to do so nicely, as did you and MMJ (as above), but all that seemed to do was reinforce him in his view that it was funny, and if it was regarded as sexist, those objectors had no sense of humour.

I don’t think he would have viewed it as sexist because he doesn’t understand subtle sexism. Even though he didn’t like me saying words to that effect 😀 I think he would see it, possibly as an insult, rude, whatever, but not realise the inherent sexism.

Hell I don’t know what he thinks! Ask him. I’ve been told to shut up. Honestly, anyone would think I had the manners of an Ark. Not as though I even called him a dickhead (sorely tempted).

Let’s wait and see what he says. He’s usually so much more reasonable. I think, at the heart of it, after he hit post and began being questioned he was probably a bit embarrassed. Rather than say that he responded defensively. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s the way it seemed to me.

He posts a good bit about stats and views and the like, so yeah, I think he’s kinda hung up on that. Most of the time he’s a bit more humble and he’s usually not so defensive when someone disagrees. He’s a self-professed grammar nazi.

I don’t pay much attention to mine either. I don’t care how many followers I have. I’m not bothered when someone decides do unfollow/defollow me. It’s likely that my writing isn’t something they’re interested in. Why fill their reader with posts they don’t care about? I can’t make myself even want to care.

I guess it depends on why you blog in the first place as to whether that matters to you or not.

Oh, and I have a facebook account but I don’t post to my timeline often. In fact, rarely. I don’t publicize my blog there at all. I don’t have a twitter account and I don’t do instagram. In fact I don’t publicize my blog anywhere. I just follow other bloggers I like and interact with them. That’s the whole point of the thing to me.

I do love my pinterest account. I’ve never really considered it to be social media(though I guess it is if you want it to be). I don’t interact on there very much. I have so when I see something I want to make or try I have a place to pin it, like a bulletin board. It’s easy to access and I don’t have to google that recipe again. 😉

The main reason why I haven’t commented is because I didn’t see inherent sexism in the word. Sure, it’s a mean word to denote a person’s subjective opinion about the looks of someone, and that’s why I don’t use it. I’m not saying that I thought you were wrong, but rather that I wasn’t able to wrap my mind around where you were coming from.

And I get frustrated when I don’t get the point. It’s taken me several days to try to understand the implications of what’s going on. What you’re getting at in your critique of Doobster’s post is important, because I think that there is a “benign” sexism out there that is painful to address but needs to be addressed anyways.

At any rate, I’m still trying to organize my thoughts on this. But I do want to say that I think this post has definitely got me thinking (hopefully in a productive way) about issues like this.

I get that it isn’t about a single word; I mentioned it because I think it’s an example of objectification. The sexism issue, if I’m correct on this, is predominantly raised both in the disclaimer and his responses to your comments.

So far I’m still mired in the 101 issues (Hessian and Withteeth gave me a good wiki, and it is FULL of information). When I see stuff like this, I’m trying to put the correct issues with the correct terms. Also, I feel like I shouldn’t be intellectually crawling on this. But that is an entirely different subject.

Sounds to me like you have understood the issues. The disclaimer and responses are key. Wiki actually isn’t bad on feminism. But, what’s needed is the personal, and that’s when it can get quite difficult. Must dash. Got to reply elsewhere …

I’m late getting to this, and spent some time reading, re-reading becuase I enjoy & respect your point of view, and can only say I agree with the points you would expect that have been made in the post and comments. My only real comment which has been alluded to, is until the occasion for IWD has been surpassed, it’s not enough. Long way to go though.
My IWD was as usual but I had the pleasure of attending a lunch where Annabelle Chauncy was the speaker. She is Founder and Director of the School for Life Foundation; a not for profit organisation focused on providing access to quality education in emerging countries and building sustainable and profitable communities. She talked about her work in Uganda.
I know there’s still a long way to go but it was a good and positive experience to hear her story.

I think I get frustrated at the trivialisation of it, and the crass comments about how there is equality, and what about the men? Your lunchtime speaker sounded interesting. There are so many different strands to seeking equality, and working to achieve education, health care and economic independence is critical. But those are obvious and basic steps. Our difficulty is eliminating the inbuilt sexism, just like any other bias or prejudice, that exists throughout society.

Those first few lines are so important. Everyone should be chanting them in so many instances now. There so much silent indoctrination continuing that it’s discouraging. Too much focus on inflaming situations, than changing the behaviors that are outdated and holding back real progress. Sigh.
(Oh, here, “guys” as an old fashioned/mobster era term – said with a strange “oi” sound – We thought it was funny. I got in the bad habit of using it when managing/herding groups of teenage juvenile delinquent (really). It is a bad habit. Please. No “folks” UGH. Always used smugly/ condescendingly when I was growing up as a slam that one was ignorant backwoods red necked/hayseed. But that may be regional. I hate to be called( “pat on the head”) folks. But that’s just me)

I think things are definitely going backwards. Which is what some groups want, and others don’t care. Logically I don’t see why the aspirations can’t be reached. Pragmatically …

I don’t like guys for lots of reasons. Partly due to people in the UK spending two or three weeks on holiday in America and coming back calling everyone you guys. Because we all need to be reminded where they went on holiday. And I don’t like the gender specific aspect.

I don’t like folks either. But at least it’s not gender specific. There are plenty of words to use. It only needs a little thought. Thought? Thinking? What’s that?

“Guys and Dolls” was a popular script for High School productions for a long time. People did say that to show they “weren’t from here”. (like it made them better or something) Dolls, Honey, Sweetie, Sugar, Baybee – I detest all of those. We used to say when people used “folks” you’d better hold on to your wallet as it was often used to create false familiarity for dubious reasons. “CIty slickers up to no good” (giggles)
One thing that bothers me is that womens’ groups seem more interested in cutting each other down than working together towards common issues. (And a good part of the men just get in there and stoke the flames as enjoy the “girl fight” as they keep strong hold on everything.
I vote on issues. I participate in causes on a case by case evaluation/validity. Broke with one women’s group because for some reason you had to be in lock step with their democratic political group without asking for analysis/justification base on facts of each situation. One actually said “Well, we are liberal thinkers and understand more than those Republican party women. As an Independent, I asked innocently “You don’t think a woman who votes Republican can have feminist ideas, be liberated, or independent and self reliant? Democratic women voters are the only ones like that?”(and I looked at their expensive clothing, long nails, perfect jewelry and hair – noting that they none of them worked, most had maids/nannies their day consisted of tennis, lunching with friends, shopping – and talking about how much money their husbands made and how “if he thought he was going to get a divorce, she’d make sure she took every penny”…
Fooling themselves.
All I can hope is inch by inch progress is made. And like I tell my daughter, they will eventually die off and change will happen. It’s slow, but it happens. We just have to work to hold ground, teach the young, and fight to keep from sliding backwards. Despite my mother’s annoyance and harsh efforts, I’m pretty independent and hold my own. If the space invaders come, they eat the weak first. That’s what we thought as kids – and it’s not a bad way to prepare for life?
Oh, sorry. too much thinking. Is that banned yet? Sometimes I think they are working on it – worse now than in a long time….but they will get old and die off…

I tend to use darling, just because it’s a Gibbo thing. And you can say it to men and women. Tends mostly to be women to women though. Spain, sometimes hija. I find chica a bit derogatory.

The problems with the infighting is that we all get distracted by the little issues. By the time you have argued about whether porn/prostitution is good/bad, martiage should be scrapped, whether MtoF have excess privilege by birth, it doesn’t leave much time to look at promoting equality. But, all groups are pretty similar.

Independence is a good lesson. With independence we can achieve a lot, hence the essential need for women to have economic independence. Thinking? Out of fashion. Didn’t you know?